Post by petrolino on Nov 13, 2022 0:32:16 GMT
🏋🏻 John Irving : 'The Wrestler's Writer' 🤼
I'm not sure that John Irving ever saw himself as being a political writer, which might be connected to his emergence as a novelist and short story writer in the 1960s. It seems like politics at the time tended to become a part of everything, even if it was being read in to it after the fact. In recent years, he's been criticised by some, appreciated by others, but there's also been a number of written articles suggesting he was somewhat ahead of the curve when it comes to today's political hot topics.
His first published novel involved ideas of conservation, animal welfare and environmentalism ('Setting Free The Bears', 1968), though more generally, it was a historic tale of liberation. Questions of identity ('The World According To Garp', 1978) and faith ('A Prayer For Owen Meany', 1989) lay at the heart of his work moving forward. He explored ideas around mental-physical metamorphosis ('The Water-Method Man', 1972), alternative lifestyles ('The Hotel New Hampshire', 1981) and reproductive freedoms ('The Cider House Rules', 1985) in his novels, ideas which continue to raise eyebrows today, though he did so within stories about people who were really just trying to figure some things out.
I've often ruminated on the nature of existence upon reading Irving's novels, but I think the bigger ideas I've tended to think about only after I've turned the last page. His experiments with framed narratives have always delighted some, while infuriating others, but I find this to be one of the most interesting aspects of his work. Within his best work, I love the situational descriptions, and the terse, rhythmic dialogue exchanges, which are rarely adjunct (if that's the correct word).
"In John Irving's "The Water-Method Man" (1972) the main character is Fred Trumper, described as a floundering graduate student with serious honesty issues that earn him the nickname Bogus. Of course that's apropos of nothing - but an interesting coincidence just the same."
- Spot On Jay, Twitter
"Whom the gods would destroy they first call promising," a famous English critic once wrote and so many young novelists are driven by a kind of malicious inevitability to live up to this prophecy that when one like John Irving does not, his achievement is all the more astonishing.
Irving's first novel, "Setting Free the Bears," received the kind of critical praise that makes one approach his second, "The Water-Method Man," with a certain amount of caution. But the first few chapters of this new work dispel any doubts about the sustained vigor of his talent. He quickly reasserts his inventiveness, wit and obvious ability to devour new experiences, digest them rapidly and convert them into imaginative symbols and lively literary episodes.
The title "The Water-Method Man," is one tinged with irony. It derives from the treatment (the water-method) that a French specialist in urology had prescribed for Fred Bogus Trumper, the principal character in the novel. A birth defect had turned Trumper's urinary tract into "a narrow, winding road."
... "The Water-Method Man," a rambling, episodic novel, is held together almost miraculously by the skill of an author who is a born writer. The reader is bombarded with a surfeit of imaginative images, symbols and events. And after putting down the novel and allowing some time to elapse, the characters, the kaleidoscope of events assume a cohesive and even more meaningful form."
Irving's first novel, "Setting Free the Bears," received the kind of critical praise that makes one approach his second, "The Water-Method Man," with a certain amount of caution. But the first few chapters of this new work dispel any doubts about the sustained vigor of his talent. He quickly reasserts his inventiveness, wit and obvious ability to devour new experiences, digest them rapidly and convert them into imaginative symbols and lively literary episodes.
The title "The Water-Method Man," is one tinged with irony. It derives from the treatment (the water-method) that a French specialist in urology had prescribed for Fred Bogus Trumper, the principal character in the novel. A birth defect had turned Trumper's urinary tract into "a narrow, winding road."
... "The Water-Method Man," a rambling, episodic novel, is held together almost miraculously by the skill of an author who is a born writer. The reader is bombarded with a surfeit of imaginative images, symbols and events. And after putting down the novel and allowing some time to elapse, the characters, the kaleidoscope of events assume a cohesive and even more meaningful form."
- Jan Carew, The New York Times
John Irving at home in Vermont
'John Irving : A Literary Figure Of Global Format' (Documentary, 2018)
Wrestling is one of the key themes that runs throughout John Irving's work. There's been several film adaptations of stories he's written including George Roy Hill's 'The World According To Garp' (1982) in which Irving appears as a wrestling referee (Garp, played by Robin Williams, is an aspiring writer and amateur wrestler). I'm a big fan of the movie, as well as Tony Richardson's 'The Hotel New Hampshire' (1984). Mark Steven Johnson's 'Simon Birch' (1998), Lasse Hallstrom's 'The Cider House Rules' (1999) and Tod Williams' 'The Door In The Floor' (2004) are the others.
'John Irving is a writer who has historically been fearless in his focus. The American-born Irving's first novel, 'Setting Free the Bears', was published in 1968 at the age of 26. His books have been translated into more than 35 languages. While known as a novelist, he's been an Hall of Fame wrestling coach, an English professor and an Oscar-winning screenwriter.'
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
"You don't get to choose your obsessions; your obsessions choose you."
- John Irving
The Sportsman & The Cheerleader : Rob Lowe and Jodie Foster in 'The Hotel New Hampshire'
John Irving speaking with Stephen Colbert
I think the best book to read for wrestling, for anyone new to John Irving's work who might be interested, is 'The 158-Pound Marriage' (1974). For me, it's one of the great novels when it comes to the discipline of wrestling.
"For the writing of my first four novels — when I was not a bestseller — I was a full-time English teacher and wrestling coach. I never thought, on the evidence of the writing of those first four books, that I would ever be self-supporting. And I liked coaching wrestling. I liked teaching English."
When I was writing The World According to Garp, I resented that I had two hours a day to write, and not every day.
I thought, how much more could I do if I could write seven days a week and I didn't have these other jobs? It's easy now, at 80, to look back and say it was fortunate that I didn't have a breakout book — a bestseller with my first novel. It's because the privilege, the good luck of being self-supporting in the world of literary fiction, is something I don't take for granted."
When I was writing The World According to Garp, I resented that I had two hours a day to write, and not every day.
I thought, how much more could I do if I could write seven days a week and I didn't have these other jobs? It's easy now, at 80, to look back and say it was fortunate that I didn't have a breakout book — a bestseller with my first novel. It's because the privilege, the good luck of being self-supporting in the world of literary fiction, is something I don't take for granted."
- John Irving speaking in October 2022, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
A Memoir (of sorts ...)
John Irving speaking with Seth Meyers
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{PRE-DISASTERED} CODA
'John Irving published his first novel at the age of 26. His fourth novel, The World According to Garp, won the National Book Award in 1980. His screenplay adaptation of another one of his novels, The Cider House Rules, won him an Academy Award. Millions of copies of his novels and short stories have been printed, sold, and read worldwide.
You would imagine that words would come easy to a tremendously talented and skilled master storyteller such as John Irving. But for Irving this was not the case. Writing was not automatic, but he has made it work for him. “To do anything really well, you have to overextend yourself,” Irving observes. “In my case, I learned that I just had to pay twice as much attention. I came to appreciate that in doing something over and over again, something that was never natural becomes almost second nature. You learn that you have the capacity for that, and that it doesn’t come overnight.”
As a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, a prep school in New England where his stepfather taught, he worked hard to earn C-minuses in English, and except for a rare few who saw sparks of his potential, his teachers regarded him as “lazy” and “stupid.” Irving remarks on those times during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s in an interview for Dr. Sally Shaywitz’s book, Overcoming Dyslexia.
You would imagine that words would come easy to a tremendously talented and skilled master storyteller such as John Irving. But for Irving this was not the case. Writing was not automatic, but he has made it work for him. “To do anything really well, you have to overextend yourself,” Irving observes. “In my case, I learned that I just had to pay twice as much attention. I came to appreciate that in doing something over and over again, something that was never natural becomes almost second nature. You learn that you have the capacity for that, and that it doesn’t come overnight.”
As a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, a prep school in New England where his stepfather taught, he worked hard to earn C-minuses in English, and except for a rare few who saw sparks of his potential, his teachers regarded him as “lazy” and “stupid.” Irving remarks on those times during the late 1950’s and early 1960’s in an interview for Dr. Sally Shaywitz’s book, Overcoming Dyslexia.
~ "I simply accepted the conventional wisdom of the day — I was a struggling student; therefore, I was stupid. I needed five years to pass the three-year foreign language requirement … I passed Latin I with a D, and flunked Latin II; then I switched to Spanish, which I barely survived …
It wasn’t until my younger son, Brendan, was diagnosed as slightly dyslexic that I realized how I had been given the shaft. His teachers said that Brendan comprehended everything he read, but that he didn’t comprehend a text as quickly as his peers …. As a child, Brendan read with his finger following the sentences — as I read, as I still read. Unless I’ve written it, I read whatever “it” is very slowly — and with my finger.
I wasn’t diagnosed as dyslexic at Exeter; I was seen as just plain stupid. I failed a spelling test and was put in a remedial spelling class … I wish I’d known, when I was a student at Exeter, that there was a word for what made being a student so hard for me; I wish I could have said to my friends that I was dyslexic. Instead I kept quiet, or — to my closest friends — I made bad jokes about how stupid I was. Brendan knows he’s not stupid; he knows he’s the same kind of student I was."
It was wrestling, and his wrestling coach, Ted Seabrooke, who kept him in school. “He gave me enough confidence in myself — through wrestling — that I was able to take a daily beating in my classes and keep coming back for more,” says Irving. “An Ironic blessing of my having to repeat my senior year at Exeter was that I finally got to be captain of the wrestling team — my sole distinction, my only honor, in five years at the academy.”
While wrestling gave him his edge in prep school, Irving’s dyslexia has helped him develop his edge in his very successful writing career. “It’s become an advantage. In writing a novel, it doesn’t hurt anybody to have to go slowly. It doesn’t hurt anyone as a writer to have to go over something again and again,” he explains.
Irving continues, “One reason I have confidence in writing the kind of novels I write is that I have confidence in my stamina to go over something again and again no matter how difficult it is — whether it is for the fourth or fifth or eighth time. It’s an ability to push myself and not be lazy. This is something that I would ascribe to the difficulties I had to overcome at an early age.”
It wasn’t until my younger son, Brendan, was diagnosed as slightly dyslexic that I realized how I had been given the shaft. His teachers said that Brendan comprehended everything he read, but that he didn’t comprehend a text as quickly as his peers …. As a child, Brendan read with his finger following the sentences — as I read, as I still read. Unless I’ve written it, I read whatever “it” is very slowly — and with my finger.
I wasn’t diagnosed as dyslexic at Exeter; I was seen as just plain stupid. I failed a spelling test and was put in a remedial spelling class … I wish I’d known, when I was a student at Exeter, that there was a word for what made being a student so hard for me; I wish I could have said to my friends that I was dyslexic. Instead I kept quiet, or — to my closest friends — I made bad jokes about how stupid I was. Brendan knows he’s not stupid; he knows he’s the same kind of student I was."
It was wrestling, and his wrestling coach, Ted Seabrooke, who kept him in school. “He gave me enough confidence in myself — through wrestling — that I was able to take a daily beating in my classes and keep coming back for more,” says Irving. “An Ironic blessing of my having to repeat my senior year at Exeter was that I finally got to be captain of the wrestling team — my sole distinction, my only honor, in five years at the academy.”
While wrestling gave him his edge in prep school, Irving’s dyslexia has helped him develop his edge in his very successful writing career. “It’s become an advantage. In writing a novel, it doesn’t hurt anybody to have to go slowly. It doesn’t hurt anyone as a writer to have to go over something again and again,” he explains.
Irving continues, “One reason I have confidence in writing the kind of novels I write is that I have confidence in my stamina to go over something again and again no matter how difficult it is — whether it is for the fourth or fifth or eighth time. It’s an ability to push myself and not be lazy. This is something that I would ascribe to the difficulties I had to overcome at an early age.”
- Dyslexia Education (Yale University)
~ A Bedtime Story
